I have to say that M:I:3 was a real fun popcorn flick. Sure, Cruise's antics have been annoying lately but this is one fun movie.
As good or better than MI (less of a mess, plotwise). Worlds better than the self-indulgent M:I-2 (I am so over John Woo and his overdone slow-mo acrobatic violence...it was neat the first time I saw it in Hard-Boiled, 4-5 pictures later...yawn).
M:I:3 is good because of a few key reasons...
#1 (here it comes again) J.J. Abrams. The man knows what he is doing. The first couple seasons of Alias was top-drawer stuff. LOST has been phenomenal so far. M:I:3 is like Alias at its best (maybe better because of budget). The point here is that Abrams knows how to make a butt-kicking secret agency movie. Story has it that someone close to Cruise sent him the first two seasons of Alias on DVD, he loved it and asked to meet with Abrams and the rest is history.
#2 Mission Impossible working in teams (like they did on the old TV show)? One thing the last two movies, especially 2, lacked enough of was agents working in teams to pull off jobs. Again, this is something that Abrams knows how to do.
#3 Those darn masks and other gadgets. While 1 and 2 had those cool (and sometimes annoying) masks and other cool gadgets they never really explained how things worked. 3 goes out of its way to show you this and doesn't overuse them. There are some really cool remote control machine-guns that Ving Rhames character uses.
#4 For J.J. Abrams fans look for a cameo of Greg Grunberg (Agent Weiss from Alias) who has known Abrams since Kindergarten. Apparently he has appeared in everything that Abrams has made.
What doesn't work...
#1Sure the whole plot revolves around Ethan Hunt (Cruise) being engaged and his fiancee being in danger of because of his job, however, her reactions to everything including the end of the movie are so unbelievable that it didn't completely work for me.
#2 The gratuitous shots of Tommy boy running in close-up (I know its his trade-mark but c'mon).
Other than that this is a really fun film.
The interesting thing to note is how bad the Box Office was for it this weekend. Its too bad that Cruise has been such a wack-job as of late. The annoying TomKat/TomKitten stuff, the on-going Scientology agenda, the mean-spirtited comments he made about Brooke Shields all add up to one thing. Women, who were a huge portion of his audience would rather not go see Tommy boy as much as they had in the past. Cruise movies in the past were the safe date-movies. Action for the guys. Eye-candy for the women. What women don't take kindly to is having Cruise slam Shields for using anti-depression meds...or jumping up and down on Oprah's couch like he is the one who needs the meds. They want to see strong/sexy leading men not the cuckoo for cocoa puffs guy he has been as of late. Also, if you believe the rumors Katie Holmes is merely Tom's beard (a whole other can of worms) and baby factory (ala Michael Jackson).
For me M:I:3 was good because of J.J. Abrams and in spite of Tom Cruise's off-camera antics.
I give it, a 6 out of 7 (7 being the highest), "I would pay to see it at Gator Cinemas"!
See what Rotten Tomatoes says.
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Rating Scale of 1-7 in cheap-o-rama:
Would pay to see it at the Cineplex
Would pay to see it at Gator Cinemas
Would pay to rent at BlockBuster (with a coupon)
Would ask Billy Grainger to find bootleg for me
Would put DVD on reserve at the Library (and wait 2-6 months to get it)
Would wait until it hits TBS/TNT/Network TV
Would only watch if the cable went out and the only channel I could get over-the-air was a showing of this movie
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